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News in brief 22/01/16

New Greggs partnership aims to Keep Britain Tidy

Food retailer Greggs has teamed up with Keep Britain Tidy as part of the charity’s annual ‘Waste less, live more’ week.

A percentage of the funds raised through plastic bag charges in the nearly 1,700 Greggs shops in Britain will be donated to Keep Britain Tidy. The 12-month partnership will involve several projects and campaigns aimed at educating the public to reduce high street litter and other waste.

The projects will include events at the charity’s registered Eco-Schools, which conduct programmes to teach young people about environmental issues and will all have the general message of ‘reduce litter, improve spaces and reduce waste’.

Keep Britain Tidy’s Chief Executive Allison Ogden-Newton said: “It is great to see a responsible business like Greggs recognise the need for the work of Keep Britain Tidy.

“The quality of the local environment – the way the places we all live in look and feel – is vitally important and our work to encourage and support communities, educate and inform needs support from every section of society.”

Raymond Reynolds, Retail Director at Greggs, added: “Teaming up with Keep Britain Tidy feels like a natural decision for Greggs and is perfectly aligned to our social responsibility commitment – reducing our impact on the world around us. We look forward to working together and making a difference by helping to improve the local environment.”

Poundland expands recycling contract to cover its acquisition of the 99p Stores

Poundland has extended Helistrat’s £4-million waste and recycling services contract to include an additional 250 stores.

The services expanded following Poundland’s £55-million acquisition of the 99p Stores chain. Helistrat, an environmental consultancy and contract management company, has been responsible for the management of the back-of-store recycling for 500 Poundland stores across the UK and Ireland since August 2014.

As part of the contract Helistrat has an account ,manager amongst Poundland’s operations team, and also provides a help desk service, recycling data management, reporting capability and full compliance auditing.

Helistrat Director Harvey Laud commented: “Helistrat has developed a strong working relationship with Poundland and look forward to expanding our services to further locations. New stores create opportunities to increase recycling rates and improve environmental performance even further.”

Every Can Counts launches online game

Every Can Counts, a partnership aimed at encouraging people to recycle drinks cans, has launched its first online game. The game, ‘CanDunk’ has been introduced in order to get social media users across nine European countries, including the UK, to think more about drinks can recycling outside of the home.

The aim of the game is to sink as many empty drinks cans as possible into an Every Can Counts recycling bin within 60 seconds. ‘Scoring’ five or more drinks cans, automatically enters the player into a prize draw to win £100 of shopping vouchers.

Research performed by Every Can Counts, a team involving European and UK manufacturers, leading drinks brands and members of the aluminium recycling industry, revealed that 55 per cent of people don’t recycle empty drinks can when outside despite 80 per cent doing so at home. Rick Hindley, executive director of Every Can Counts, said: “The Can Dunk game is a prime example of one of the new ways we are targeting consumers to become more aware to recycle their drinks cans when they are out and about using social media on mobile and other portable devices.”

To play CanDunk, which is available for UK entries until 12 February 2016, please visit the game's site.

Community bike project helps Liverpool locals commute

A community bike shop in the deprived area of Kensington, Liverpool is refurbishing donated and unwanted bikes in order to provide cheap cycles to assist locals in their commute.

Kensington Vision CIC initiated the Onya Bike scheme 18 months ago and has received £5,000 funding from Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority (MRWA) and the Veolia Community Fund.

The project relies on donated bikes, of which it reportedly receives around 20 every month, though some are purchased on auction sites. Recently, the shop has had to increase its storage space due to the amount of donated bikes waiting to be refurbished.

The bikes are fixed by volunteer cycle mechanics and are sold for an average of around £40, usually to people needing a cheap method of getting to work. The shop says that it sells five or six bikes per week and has sold around 200 to date.

Stephen Faragher, Director of Kensington Vision CIC, said: “Mountain bikes are obviously popular but it’s surprising how many people are interested in folding bikes, and old racers as well. We’ve even got a rickshaw waiting to be prepared for sale and a World War II adults’ tricycle which is ready to go.”

Councillor Graham Morgan, Chairperson of MRWA, said: “The community fund is about encouraging people to reuse and recycle resources. Onya Bike is doing just that and playing a big part in helping people in a very deprived area access employment opportunities and get healthy at the same time.”

Short story competition teaches Surrey children about recycling

Creative children aged 6-14 in Surrey are being invited by Recycle for Surrey to visit their local library and write a short story about the journey their recycling takes after leaving the home.

The competition has been designed to get children thinking about the process that turns used products into new items.

Imagination is encouraged as the most creative story will be picked as the winner: kids can include characters from their favourite book or use the diagrams on the entry form as a guide.

Completed forms, which have been available from 9 January, should be handed into to any library in Surrey before the 27 February, with contact details of the entrants parents noted on the back.

The winner, who will receive a family ticket to Chessington World of Adventures or Thorpe Park, will be picked in the week commencing 21 March.

Clear-IT! initiative providing doorstep business WEEE collection

A new initiative from resource efficiency specialist ecosurety and electronics recycling company SHP Ltd, will enable ecosurety members to have their unwanted IT equipment collected from their doorstep.

Clear-IT! Will recover and recycle computers, mobile phones, laptops and other items designated under the European Commission’s Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive. SHP will arrange the collection, process the waste and destroy the data.

James Piper, Commercial Director at ecosurety explains: “ecosurety has always been extremely keen to promote collections of redundant IT equipment, but there has been always the potential barrier of how best to ensure data security, an increasingly important consideration for companies that rely on business information systems for their competitive edge, not to mention the very real danger of corporate data falling into the wrong hands.

“Following discussions, we are more than satisfied SHP Ltd has the right processes in place to offer members a compelling service, with peace of mind that all necessary steps have been taken for the secure and efficient reuse of their IT equipment.”